Aidan Crowley has almost 20 Rásanna to his name. He says this year's route is "savage" and believes Irish riders will be outside the time cut on same stages (Photo: Stephen McMahon – Sportsfile)
By Brian Canty
One of the country’s most prolific riders for more than two decades has described this year’s An Post Ras route as “savage”.
National Masters 40 champion Aidan Crowley has 20 Rásanna behind him and the Corkman knows most roads in the country at this stage.
But he says he was taken aback by how hard this year’s race is going to be.
The Strata3-VeloRevolution man has competed for stage wins in the past – finishing as high as sixth.
He has also been part of winning county teams on a few occasions but feels it is hard to see any Irishman getting up on any day this year following the route announced yesterday for May’s event.
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“There are hard roads out of each starting town and that makes it very difficult,” he said.
“As race director Tony Campbell said, the Irish rider will need to train and we will definitely have to train hard - perhaps harder than ever.”
Crowley reckons the positioning of climbs earlier in the stages than 12 months ago will make for some tense moments for the county riders just looking to make the time limit.
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“There will time gap eliminations, no doubt. It's going to be really hard on Irish riders who work full-time.
“It's a savage route and the time and effort that needs to go into preparing for this isn’t to be underestimated.
“Last year the climbs were neatly placed at the end of stages so if Irish riders got dropped at least it was near the end.
“They could fight home and be within the time limit. That might not be the case this year.”
Winter training camps are nothing new to Irish club teams and Crowley and some of the Strata3-VeloRevolution squad travelled to Majorca recently for a week.
“The pro teams are in Spain all the time now preparing,” he said of some of the world’s biggest teams sharing the roads with the Irish amateurs.
“I went there for a week with the lads last month and saw some of them, some of the Tirol team riders were there for a month but we came home while they stayed out there.”
The Tirol team is a Continental level squad that has won the Rás for the last two years with Clemens Fankhauser in 2014 and Lukas Postlberger last year.
Crowley said his team mates were in work this week while teams like Tirol were still on their full time training camps in the sun.
“Today, Stephen Murray is on a roof lifting tiles into place, Mick Fitzgerald is doing more manual labour and Hughie McMahon went to work at 3am this morning.
“It's pretty special or crazy to want to ride against the pros in May; are we cannon fodder? just stupid or love the race?”
